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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963557">The Twilight Years</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowflakeofdestruction/pseuds/snowflakeofdestruction'>snowflakeofdestruction</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Family Matters [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family Fluff, Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Memory box, Moving, Reminiscing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:55:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,885</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963557</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowflakeofdestruction/pseuds/snowflakeofdestruction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a far off future, Axel and Roxas's granddaughter gets to see and hear a little bit of their life together while helping them pack up the old family home as they prepare to leave Twilight Town behind.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Axel/Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), akuroku family</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Family Matters [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020523</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Twilight Years</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsintheMadness/gifts">AbsintheMadness</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one is for Absinthe Madness's birthday, just a day late. I hope you like this fluff and domesticity as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you, for being awesome and I hope you have a great year. Turkey belongs to Autumn Plants first and the entire Akuroku community second. Soleil and the SLUT cup are from Death Scout's After the battle AU. I like references that tie us all together, what can I say?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The last of the boxes had already been been moved downstairs. The furniture had went yesterday, carried off by some spell Aunt Salena had learned from Master Naminé who had been rumored to have learned it from Merlin himself, shrinking down and dancing inside a small, red drawstring bag that Pop Pop had asked her to make sure her father-in-law didn't steal--a joke I don't think anyone had really gotten, though Aunt Salena had laughed gamely and crossed her heart.</p><p> I let myself have a moment in the empty bedroom that had once been my home away from home, and, I knew, my mother's room before that, and Grandpa's home office in times both before and after. Decades of history could still be felt even in the hollow shell, stories written in nail holes that were soon to be painted over, the dent in the far wall where it had been replastered but not well after the great summoning accident of my mother's youth, and in stains and stamped down places on the carpet. Cinnamon and pumpkin lingered in the air. My mother would say it was the air freshener she'd sprayed after we had finished clearing the room, but it smelled like Grandpa to me, still clearly marking where his spirit guarded the room. The air freshener wouldn't explain the undercurrent of spearmint either--like the gum Pop Pop always chewed because he couldn't stand not being in motion, even if it was only his jaw working away.  </p><p>My grandfathers hadn't used the upstairs rooms the past few years, except when I stayed over, not since Pop Pop had fallen on the stairs ("A fluke. I was running to get to the kitchen because I had forgotten I had food on the stove" The defense that only caused other, worse arguments from Mom about him and Grandpa getting older) and had to get what he called a "system tune up" from Radiant Garden.  Their presence still lingered though, and I hoped that new paint and carpets peeled back for wood floors wouldn't chase off the friendly ghosts. </p><p>The next occupants might need the covering of love. That was what was left, not even smells and the singed spot where I had tried to hide a cigarette under the bed one summer when I was spending a week, when Pop Pop knocking on the door had caught me by surprise and good sense had left me, causing me to yell "Come in" instead of "I'm changing" and toss contraband away instead of stubbing it out properly. I had been found out, but Pop Pop had not lectured me on smoking or the carpet, but had told me my mother had favored the air vents when she was a teenager. Love.</p><p>My mother found me lying on the floor, looking up at the popcorn ceiling to try and make out old constellations I'd once found or had pointed out to me by Grandpa and Pop Pop. The paopu, the soldier, the pretzel, the dog, the crossed swords (also known as "two dicks"). </p><p> I expected a lecture about holding up proceedings. We were supposed to be finishing the downstairs this afternoon and keeping my grandfathers in line to make sure they actually made it on a gummi ship today and didn't encourage each other into "One more night in the old place." Instead, she folded herself to sit cross-legged on the floor beside my head (that's what the single, graceful, fluid motion looked like at least: human origami), brushing her auburn bob behind her ears. She nearly had more gray hairs among the darkened red than Grandpa, who defied age at every turn except for in his hands where his long, slender fingers swelled in knots and sometimes bent even when he tried to keep them straight ("The better to gesture with when I tell scary stories" he'd say, always finding a silver lining) and deep lines around his eyes ("Blame Roxas for making me so damn happy"), and it stirred my chest oddly. I wondered if she'd start dying her hair soon like Aunt Salena. I doubted she'd choose to turn it teal like Aunt Salena had in any case.</p><p>"Did you find the clock tower?" she asked, sounding wistful enough that I suspected she was finding the emptying house as emotional as the rest of the family, though she'd been the driving force insisting that Grandpa and Pop Pop didn't need so much space, it was foolish for them to keep digging their heels in on Twilight Town when the rest of the family was settled in Radiant Garden, and, even more, it was dangerous for them to live at the top of a steep hill with Pop Pop's issues (greatly exaggerated if you asked him, which I had learned not to, because it also came with recitation of a litany of keyblade masters of the past who had taught students into and beyond their seventies).</p><p>"I think so. Far left corner over where the desk used to be."</p><p>"And extending over to by the window. You can tell because you can see the two of them sitting at the top by the bell."</p><p>I turned my head to look at her, filling my vision more than halfway with my own hair instead when I failed to actually lift my head before turning it to the side. It had gone disappointingly darker over the past two years. I had hoped it would stay vibrantly red for at least a few years more if not longer. I'd seen pictures of Grandpa with hair that would shine in the dark well into middle age. I should at least get to stay bright red until a quarter century. It wasn't fair. "Do you think they really used to do that?" They'd claimed enough times that the top of the clocktower had been their spot, but it didn't look like a place you could actually get up to, or one where the access stairs would be behind locked doors at least. Such base security didn't really mean anything to a keybearer of course, but I just couldn't make the image quite click.</p><p>"I know they did."  My mother ran her fingers back and forth across a patch of carpet as if absentmindly petting an old family pet. "They weren't the only ones. I ran away to live there when I was ten. They found me within an hour. Called me unoriginal."</p><p>"No way," I huffed a laugh and ended up with hair in my mouth. I should have moved more, but that also seemed like too much effort for the moment. "Actually, maybe I can believe it from them, but you're don't even like Ferris wheels."</p><p>"They remind me of Prankster's Paradise," she corrected as if the words should mean something. The name Pranksters Paradise sounded like a band or a song, the type my mom would have listened to in the days she stashed cigarettes in air vents.  "I had a bad experience." Maybe it was a drug, but I doubted she'd admit to it.  "It wasn't the heights. The clocktower is a safe place. I should have taken you up there--if I hadn't been so old and set on being responsible by the time I had you. I'm surprised Dad didn't."</p><p>"He'd never let me do anything you didn't approve of." I summoned the will to peel myself off the floor. It went as far as sitting up and sweeping the hair away from my face. The wry look I got from my mother told me my delivery hadn't exactly been convincing (Only a fool would think they could get one over on Dulce Emberson, but, like most of our family, I was a self-professed fool and clown) so I amended. "Not when it came to something I could get hurt doing. Hurt beyond what a cura could fix." I tacked on my second correction without a pause this time.</p><p>"I believe that." My mother stood just as gracefully as she'd sat down and extended a hand to me like I was the one who needed help. "I came to get you because Dad and Pap are going through the star box we pulled down from the top of the closet. It's full of old mementos. I thought you'd want to see and hear the stories."</p><p>I ignored the offered hand and pressed off the ground. "They are <em>un</em>packing a box and you're letting them get away with it?"</p><p>She shook her head, downturn of her lips paired with darting eyes coming across more as uncertainty or self-castigation that made me want to comfort her (if I knew the cause and whether to say "we'll make up time later" or "I don't think you're <em>that </em>rigid, Mom") than sadness. "They're my fathers..."</p><p>That fact hadn't stopped her any time before, but I knew to leave it. I raced around her and down the stairs, taking the bannister instead of the steps themselves since it might be the last chance. I was met with a cheer from those downstairs and a protest from my mother. "You are too old to..."</p><p>"Dulce Xion Emberson, don't you dare finished that sentence. You know the rules in this house, and it is still my house for another few days." Pop Pop treated the rebuke seriously. Mom had put forth fighting words.</p><p>Grandpa pulled him closer to his side. They were curled on the couch. Grandpa had his feet on the coffee table like a rebelling child. The position couldn't have been good for his back, but he looked comfortable. He kissed the top of Pop Pop's white dandelion fluff hair and muttered something I couldn't quite make out, though I heard the word bannister (as well as the growl of "Roxas," but Pop Pop's name was hardly a clue) and the tone and filled in a challenge to race once all the children were gone. It seemed to placate Pop Pop at any rate.  </p><p>The large hat box shaped like a blue star the had been rescued from the closet sat on the empty couch cushion. With the top off, it was clear it was much larger on the inside than the outside, but Pop Pop didn't seem to have any trouble shifting it to the coffee table to make another seat. An assortment of what honestly seemed to be garbage was already laid out. A dried up leaf. What looked to be two melted action figures fused together. Half a birthday candle. A large blue marble.  </p><p>Aunt Salena, sitting in a rocking chair pulled out of place close to the couch, held a jar with a few inches of dirt settled at the bottom. "It's from the Keyblade Graveyard, Dee." She shook the jar at my mother. "They were just telling the story of when Pop came back to help the Guardians win the Second Keyblade War. You'll want to hear too, Squiggle."</p><p>I wrinkled my nose on reflex as I sat on the floor at my aunt's feet in order to let my mom have the spot on the couch, but didn't object to the nickname. It would only have the opposite effect. Grandpa only ever called me Squiggle as it was. </p><p>"You've all heard it," Pop Pop demurred. A complete understatement. The story of the Second Keyblade War, even more than other tales of Grandpa and Pop Pop's epic heroism had been retold so many times every member of the family, including those that married in, could recite it just as well as the others. </p><p>"Tell it again," I urged like a good grandchild.</p><p>"We will, when we can tell it properly," Grandpa cut in, pushing his glasses up his nose with a finger. I wasn't used to seeing him wearing them rather than seeing them as a statement piece paperweight on the table or the T.V. stand, or, one memorable time, inside the refrigerator. "We're touching on the larger story. The story of us. You young ones too." He bent with a groan, reached into the box and fished until he came up with what looked to be a bill written in weathered ink. "Salena's first broken bone. Dropped a six foot claymore right on her foot, didn't you, Lena? Learned not to try and imitate your Uncle Isa."</p><p>"Learned that I needed to put on more muscle before I tried," the retort came back.</p><p>Pop Pop  made a throaty noise somewhere between a tssk and a hiss and Grandpa nudged him in the ribs. "And you didn't trust me just to cure her myself."</p><p>"There are a lot of small bones in the foot! You need to make sure they are put back together right! You can't just throw magic on it! Curaga is fine for battle emergencies, not for the babies!"</p><p>"You used a curaga on Dulce when she broke her arm skateboarding!" Aunt Salena interjected, and assorted shocked and guilty looks shared around said that it may have been a father-daughters secret until that moment.</p><p>"You did what?" Grandpa looked horrified, attention ping-ponging between his husband and my mother. "And you tried skateboarding? You were always so scared."</p><p>"You would have cried," Pop Pop dismissed him. "I mean I cried too, out of pride, but you would have made it more than it was. An arm is easy to fix and everyone wipes out their first time, especially if they go right for the big hill. She's fine. It was decades ago."</p><p>At the same time, in the same downplaying tone, my mom clarified, "After, I was scared <em>after</em> that. It stopped me from hurting something more serious." She lifted the big, brittle leaf and twirled it between her fingers, deflecting. "What's this?"</p><p>"Lily pad stolen right off the head of a Neverland mermaid. Axel bet me a kiss I couldn't," Pop Pop preened, latching onto the subject change while Grandpa huffed, still processing the story he'd been left out of. </p><p>"And you kept it all these years?" I asked rhetorically. I grabbed the twisted plastic blob men to hold up in one hand while the other picked out an old popsicle stick. "I guess that isn't surprising."</p><p>"That's our wedding cake topper," Grandpa pointed to the deformed plastic, but didn't offer a story. "And that's the Winner stick. It's basically all I had of Roxas for a year and a half, a winner stick and hope for a happier ending."</p><p>"Hope paid off." Pop Pop leaned up for a kiss, and Grandpa complied and took one that lasted long enough for my mom to clear her throat like I was still a child and I hadn't seen far "worse" from them before. Grandpa was known to sneak up behind Pop Pop, grab his butt with both hands, and yell "cake for dessert" on a fairly regular basis then loudly pretend to have dementia and have forgotten anyone but the two of them were in the house if called out on it. That was far more embarrassing than a sweet little kiss when it came to public displays of affection. I liked seeing they were still in love.</p><p>Pop Pop took a turn fishing a memento out of the box, coming out with a wine bottle cork with the logo for Le Grand Bistro branded into the top. He juggled it back and forth over the back of his knuckles. "This is from the night I proposed."</p><p>"The fourth night you proposed," Grandpa clarified. "And I'd proposed three times by then myself. We were proposing to each other  every time we went out that year to get free stuff and applause. He doesn't get to pretend like getting married was his idea. It was Scrooge McDuck."</p><p>"I was getting to that part. Scrooge suspected us." Pop Pop made his voice conspiratorial and widened his eyes for drama, invoking the fear of being caught. "Maybe he had heard from a waiter we'd pulled the same trick at Tony's Restaurante across town. Maybe he was just being himself. He came over during dessert and starts asking us all these questions about the wedding--stuff we wouldn't have known even if the engagement was real. Where are we having the ceremony? What are our colors? Who is doing the flowers? That type of thing. And he warns us that if we hesitate to answer he'll have us working as dishwashers to pay him back for the crème brûlée and wine we are stealing under false pretenses."</p><p>They traded off telling the story again. "So we start bullshitting answers, the first things that come to mind. We back each other up. We're sharing Xion as Best Person.  Isa is giving me away. Wedding colors are red, orange, and yellow like a sunset. We're getting married in front of the old mansion and the reception will be inside. There aren't going to be flowers. Terra is officiating."</p><p>"But..." I was the only one silly enough to break in when I knew some of those details were wrong based on pictures I'd seen. My aunt shushed me.</p><p>The story went on like I hadn't spoken, Pop Pop taking over once more, concluding, "By the time he was satisfied we were actually planning a wedding, we were. On the way out, we turned to each other at about the same time..."</p><p>"I was first," Grandpa asserted.</p><p>"Same time," Pop Pop insisted. "We both asked 'you want to?' Not your most romantic of proposals, but it was us. And I was the one that slipped the cork in my pocket. <em>And</em> I had done the restaurant proposal, so if anyone gets more credit, it's me."</p><p>"Debatable," Grandpa refused to let it slide. </p><p>"You can propose renewing our vows."</p><p>"Not now that you brought it up and ruined the spontaneity."</p><p>"Oh, come on."</p><p>They pouted at each other, and I found myself hoping that my fiancé and I would have the same kind of bantering dynamic a half a century from now.</p><p>The mementos and the stories kept coming. </p><p>The birthday candle was from Pop Pop's first birthday after the Keyblade Graveyard. Pop Pop hadn't remembered what day he'd first popped into existence. Even Great Uncle Sora had forgotten the calendar date ( Great Uncle Riku remembered but hadn't thought to remind anyone because the anniversary meant something different to him). Grandpa had it marked though. The most important day of the year. Roxas's day, which had been a fresh start for him too. He'd planned a party. It was the first time Roxas had said the words 'I love you' too, so it was doubly important.</p><p>There was an eviction notice in there as well, but much like the parking ticket both of them had chuckled over and yelled simultaneously, "But, officer we don't even have a car!" the story was deemed not something we needed to know. The two pages they'd torn from a spellbook in Yensid's tower study to have a souvenir from their Mark of Mastery exam, the intergalactic incident the act had caused, and the description of the world hidden in the pages before it had been safely relocated to an amiable book of Merlin's that gave it room to grow, was fodder for an hour or so though. </p><p>A novelty humor pregnancy announcement greeting card was pulled out. Written inside was a note in Pop Pop's scrawl.  <em><strong>Kidding, obviously, but we should adopt.</strong></em> Pop Pop laughed about how Grandpa was actually confused for a moment's before reading the added note, and Grandpa protested that he had seen Pop Pop and Great Aunt Xion make their replica bodies go through a lot of different adaptation based on their moods. It went without saying that after a few discussions on adoption they'd asked Master Naminé to be their surrogate so they could have a biological child, and they'd ended up with twins. Salty and Sweet. </p><p>Apparently, if there had only been one baby, it would have been named. Soleil. </p><p>There was another note from before my mom and Aunt Salena were born. Great Aunt Xion saying she was flattered about being asked to be godmother until she heard Isa was godfather. She declared herself godfather in his place, and told them to uphold her appointment and have Kairi be godmother or she and Master Naminé were keeping the babies. Grandpa said she was reasoned with, but Pop Pop seemed to think Xion had stayed godfather. They bickered over it until Mom had held up a dog collar and asked when they'd had a pet other than Turkey, the sphinx cat they'd rescued when she and Aunt Salena were little. It was a good argument ender since the collar turned out to be another thing they wouldn't explain and ordered us not to speculate on--which was fairly upsetting, but less so when I created my own story about a lost puppy.  </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>Grandpa's shmaltzy introduction had been right. The box was the story of them and all of us, more and more chapters filled in with every object taken out of the box.  It was healing; I could tell. My grandfathers were relaxing--though it would have been hard for an outsider to see their stress in the first place unless it was a moment they were actively sniping at my mother. It had make it easier to leave Twilight Town when it was laid out that neither house nor planet fully held their life together. It was a story beyond, with many more chapters, and they carried it with them. My mother was finishing the process she'd started before she'd even grabbed me from upstairs as well, seeing time treasured rather than time wasted in the lingering.</p>
  <p>Unfortunately, I was the one that had to break up the basking. "I don't mean to leave the rest of the packing up on you old timers," I teasingly apologized, "But I'm supposed to meet Yozora. He, Raito, and Aegis had a fitting this afternoon with the good fairies, or he would have been here. We're meeting halfway between the Mysterious Tower and here. In Shibuya. "</p>
  <p>My grandfather's shared a long look I couldn't decipher. It was resigned, almost sad.</p>
  <p>"Be careful, Sora. Good luck. Say hi to your namesake for us when you see him."</p>
  <p>The skin on my arms prickled in gooseflesh. It was such an odd thing to say. Great Uncle Sora had died last year. "I'm not going to end up in the final world just going to meet Yozora for dinner."</p>
  <p>There was another shared, definitely unnerving look. "If you did, that would be quite the adventure."</p>
  <p>I wanted to call them out for being weird, and I could tell my mother did too, though Aunt Salena had her hands clenched in her lap and lips pressed tightly together like she knew what was going on, but couldn't be trusted to comment. Before I could act though, they were back to joking around, speaking over each other to tell contradictory stories about how they'd come to own a mug stamped with the word SLUT and why it deserved a place in the box.  </p>
  <p>I decided I didn't have time to worry about them acting strange. I had my own story to add chapters to.</p>
  <p>
    
  </p>
  <p> </p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Time travel shenanigans? Time travel shenanigans!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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